PROLOGUE

FEDERAL “ALPHA” DETAINMENT FACILITY
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA

This woman ,Jean, is going somewhere she doesn't want to go, but she must. Is this man so deadly, he needs to be chained? There are probably other thoughts going through her mind that didn't make it to paper, but are there from what you imply.

I like the suspense you build, as well as an ominous character in an orange jumpsuit.
He seems like a Hannibal-type criminal.

But overall, the feel of the opening is good and I'd read more of it.

Carpenter is a very broken person who finds himself with extraordinary power.

The setting is around 2013, 7 years after a catastrophic biological attack that killed approximately 1% of all children under the age of 13. Of the survivors 1% begin to exhibit strange abilities. Carpenter is a villain in that he is a very weak broken person who finds himself with extreme gifts. The protagonist is someone who is unaware of his gifts because of there passive nature. This is all layered on top of the governments growing concern to control these gifted children, many of whom are now adults. I may push the timeline ahead a little bit, but I did not want to have to extrapolate the techonology too far, so 2013 seemed a good setting.

So, you're going to kill her off? Or were you just kidding. If you weren't kidding, then you're spending WAY too much time telling me who she is. And even if she is going to be an important character, you won't get very far with me, as a reader, if you make me not like her very much then kill her off. You'll have a lot more power if you make me really like her then kill her off. I'll be much more drawn in emotionally if you do that. And it never hurts to draw your readers in emotionally. The point is, if you're going to make her this important in your opening scene, she needs to be important throughout.

Oh, and I wouldn't call a 1% death rate all that catastrophic--that's like a few thousand children. Catastrophic is the Black Death--25% or more of the population. Up that number, IMO, to REALLY make it catastrophic, like 30 or 40%. 70% even better. A biological attack could be tailor designed to hit a certain segment of the population (like the children in your story). Ever read The White Plague by Frank Herbert? Know anything about RSV? A common infection, but it can kill infants while it only gives the adults around them mild cold-like symptioms. Or the reverse--chicken pox which is pretty mild in children but can cripple an adult.

Anyway, just throwing some things out there.

Originally the epilogue was in 3rd person, but I shifted to her POV because I thought it would be more interesting. I see how that is now an issue.

The logical choice is to have the POV as Carpenter, but it might reveal more of the character than I want. Could be interesting though. It's only 2 pages, I'll try it as Carpenter and see how it turns out.

If he develops the abilities suddenly, this will let you raise some questions about what is going on, and give the reader more insite to one of the main characters. If this guy is bad, and he really enjoys killing her that gives the reader something to hate about him. Now the reader will be rooting for the good guy since they know how evil the villian is.

It actually might be just what you're looking for for the prologue.

What do you guys think?

Jimmy tugged impatiently at his restraints, the cold metal manacles engulfed his wrists, his nose itched furiously and he tugged harder, trying desperately to scratch it, but the unrelenting cuffs kept his wrists firmly attached to the metal girdle encircling his waist. Jimmy did his best to ignore the faded yellow cinder block walls and the omnipresent observation mirror to his right. He focused on the simple metal chair and table in the center of the room, eying the outdated voice recorder sitting on it. He crinkled his nose, ignoring the strong smell of industrial antiseptic, his nose was driving him crazy.

A new smell intruded on him, his itchy nose forgotten, he could smell her at the door, a crisp coppery edge to her musk. Must be her time of the month, he thought, his nose filling with her scent. He watched the reinforced metal door slide open and her scent flooded over him.

Pretty enough, don't care for that haughty look though. He watched the petite red head walk to the table and sit. Walks like a cat, wonder how she ruts? He looked beyond the obligatory white lab coat and hair tied into a bun and could sense the heat coming off her skin. His muscles tightened and bunched, the restraints gave just a bit under his unintentional pressure, Not yet, don't want to break em til I've had my fun. Jimmy smiled his crooked toothed smile and flashed her his icy blue orbs, Heh that unnerved her, he thought as he enjoyed the chilling effect his stare had on her.

Anyway I was surprised you went this direction.

In your first piece he reminded me of Hannibal Lector, in this one it seems like your aiming for Riddick. Does he have super-human powers of smell to sense a woman's discharge? (ie Pitch Black?) If she is wearing sanitary protection I don't see how he could. If she isn't wearing protection then she's a pretty disgusting character. In Pitch Black they were in a survival situation with no water and the girl had no protection to wear they had no supplies.

Also I have never heard of humans asking does someone "rut" well.

Also if he was so easily thwarted by restraints from itching his nose, then suddenly he can break them so he can rape this woman doesn't flow for me. To go from frantically trapped to in control?

Though your first writing of this scene had some flaws I found it more believable and interesting than this one. But this is just my opinion.

I also did not mean for him to come across as frantic, more as contemptuous. I can see that "desperate" and a couple of other word choices give the wrong idea.

When a woman is menstruating her scent changes, just like every other animal :-) No amount of sanitary protection is going to cover that up if your senses are sharp enough. Humans sense of smell is generally not discriminating enough to notice this.

The character has a Hannibal Lechter quality, but he is not that smart. He is a pretty base individual from a broken background. He has developed abilities (like many others that will show up through the course of the story) and takes advantage of them. His senses are sharper than normal, maybe twice as effective as normal, his skin is relatively bullet proof and he's 10 times stronger than a man his size. He got caught after a killing spree, he was drugged up from partying and when he awoke they had him in custody and he didn't want to reveal the extent of his abilities.

I am toying with him having MPD and right now his protector is in charge, I figure I can garner some misplaced sympathy if his child personality comes forth later.

As to rut...maybe it's a southern thing. I know the crude phrase "ruts like a bitch in heat" has been bantered about in my presence. I felt it was preferable to "****" or "in the sack" and would show his contempt and subhuman opinion of women in general. I'll see if I can't think of a better way to put it.

Thanks! I like Gnomes too, look forward to seeing it progress.

Jimmy tugged contemptuously at his restraints, the cold metal manacles engulfed his wrists, his nose itched furiously and he desperately fought the urge to scratch it. Jimmy did his best to ignore the faded yellow cinder block walls and the omnipresent observation mirror to his right. He focused on the simple metal chair and table in the center of the room, eying the shiny high tech video recorder sitting on it. He crinkled his nose, ignoring the strong smell of industrial antiseptic, his nose was driving him crazy.

A new smell intruded on him, his itchy nose forgotten, he could smell her at the door, a crisp coppery edge to her musk. Must be her time of the month, he thought, his nose filling with her scent. He watched the reinforced metal door slide open, her scent washed over him.

Pretty enough, don't care for that haughty look though. He watched the petite red head walk to the table and sit. Walks like a cat, wonder how she ruts? He looked beyond the obligatory white lab coat and hair tied into a bun and could sense the heat emanating off her skin. His muscles tightened and bunched, the restraints giving under his unintentional pressure, Not yet, don't want to break em till I've had my fun. Jimmy smiled his crooked toothed smile and flashed her his dead icy blue orbs, Heh that unnerved her, he thought, enjoying the chilling effect his stare had on her.

[This message has been edited by HuntGod (edited December 28, 2004).]

On the ruts thing maybe if you actually wrote "I bet she ruts like a bitch (dog, cat, tiger, demon, whatever) in heat." Then it has the full effect and shows his standards.

Sorry missed this.

Well at 1% that's around 17,000 million dead children. Almost 900,000 in the US alone.

I'd consider 900,000 dead kids (which is the size of the largest city in Alabama) over a 1 week period pretty catastrophic.

The death toll for the black plague was around 130,000,000 people over a 1400 years time span, that's around 1 million people per year. There were 3 major breakouts in the 6th, 13th and 17th century, each with a higher death toll. These breakouts sometimes lasted decades.

The closest modern equivalent would be the influenza pandemic in the early 20th century. It killed 25,000,000 people in 1918-1919 and those were across all age brackets.

Put that in perspective. In a typical school system of 3000-4000 students, 30-40 of them just drop dead.

But listen to this perspective (and this time I used a calculator): In a typical school of 400-500 kids, that would only be 4 or 5 dead. In the micropopulation of a school, that's really not that many, especially considering that in normal circumstances it's not all that unusual for a school to lose one or two a year due to diseases, accidents, etc. Make the epidemic such that classes are severely effected by it. Mrs. Brown's class has been reduced by 10 kids--1/3 of her class. Now THAT'S worth taking some more serious notice of on an up close and personal level. And if you have to go that close to get the feeling of numbers across then do it. That makes much more impact on me than 900,000 US children dead. Even that number is beyond my ability to comprehend. But WOW! If Mrs. Brown loses 1/3 of her class, rather than 4 or 5 kids in the whole school (that's less than one per grade in a typical elementary school)--that really hit's home as to the magnitude of this thing.

I STILL think it would be more appropriate to go for a radically higher percentage. I would think a simple outbreak of smallpox--particularly since we no longer immunize against it, would kill a much larger percentage of the population. Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the infected population.

And as far as the other numbers you gave me, consider what the percentages of population were in comparison. You can't compare numbers to numbers when you're talking about something that happened 100 or 400 years ago. To more accurately compare you need to consider percentages. Because no matter when it happens, an epidemic that we are unprepared for will take out a similar percentage of population as the plague or the influenza epidemic did--more, I would think, considering that your plague is a biological, therefore engineered, attack.

The percentage of US population killed in the 1918 influenza epidemic was about 1.5%. Staggering, but not, IMO, of super-proportions that an engineered plague might bring about. And even at that, the world at large did not experience a drop in population between 1910 and 1920.

As far as world population drops, there have been three historically. The first was from 1250 to 1300 AD. A drop of 40 million people from 400 million to 360 million. That's a 10% population decrease. That doesn't take into account natural population growth that was taking place at the same time, so the the actual death rate would have been much higher. #2, 1340 to 1400, population decrease from 443 million to 350 million. Again, no compensation for natural population growth. That's a base population decrease of 21%, meaning the actual death rate would have been much higher. #3, 1600 to 1650, population decrease from 545 million to 470 million, a drop of 75 million. A percentage of population decrease of 14%, again the actual death rates being much higher.

I really think a death rate of no less than 10% will have considerably more dramatic impact.

The idea was to introduce this relatively unlikable character in the prologue, so you get to see him in action. Then in chapter one you move to the POV of the protagonist.

But that is only a thought.

I do think this works better and it also shows this guys mentality. I also agree with Survivor on the basis, IF, you are going to be in his head, WRITE, like you are in his head. Use the language he uses, but you could also use it sparringly too. It can be effective to show the limited vocabulary of this deviant.

I like the story the way you begin it.

Just my thoughts.

Aside from that, I'm not sure how I feel about stories with a prologue in the POV of a character I actively dislike. If the point is to stay in his POV through the book and let me gradually come to like him or at least understand him, that's different, otherwise I have to ask: What is the purpose of making the audience know and understand the character better than your protaganist will?

On the other subject of the number of children dead from this disease...900,000 in a week. Over the course of a year, maybe that's not noticeable, but a single week? Pay attention to your reactions to the tragedy in Asia if you have any doubts that 900,000 people is a lot for a death toll especially from an unknown agent. I'm across the globe, I don't know anyone personally who was touched by this and I am horrified.

So, I'm back to asking what the purpose of the illness is in the story. If it is just to give the antagonist superhuman powers, one could argue that it needs a lower death toll. Presumably all the children got sick. Personally, during my whole time in school no one died that I know of. If I were a kid, sick, and four kids at my school died in a single week from the same thing that I had... That's significant. That's the sort of thing that people would have investigated heavily. What serves the story here?

I'm saying that it is the wrong word. Mark Twain also had something to say about the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. "To rut" means to enter a season of increased sexual activity (and is applied to males rather than females). Colloquially, it means to have sex with indiscriminate enthusiasm (and can be applied to both men and woman). One key part of the colloquial meaning is that you think the person "rutting" isn't picky enough about sexual partners, it implies that you are far more picky than the subject. Also, it is an intransitive verb (even when used colloquially) and so is insufficiently flexible here.

Now, if my evil superpower were the ability to cause women to rut (by emitting super-pheromones or something), then I might chuckle evilly to myself while considering whether my prissy interrogator would "rut well". But that is not the scenario described here.

The point I was making about the 'rut' topic, was that sometimes, when using colloquialisms, words that are used improperly in other formats tend to fit. Take for example, the word: 'ain't'. Very common word, used by millions, totally and absolutely wrong from a grammatical point of view.
But when it's a character's thought, then it is out of character not to use it. What I mean is, if you have a hillbilly right out of the Smoky Mountains (Do they have hillbillies there?) then it would be silly to have said hillbilly say, "Darling, I am going out for my daily constitutional." Unless! said hillbilly pretending or is acting in a production of 'Pride and Prejudice' at his local high school. (That gives me a kick thinking about that. Imagine a guy in overalls, no shoes, ballcap, standing on a stage sipping pretend tea with his pinky pointing up in the air)
Oh well. But the point is made, true, about right words and wrong words. I guess what it comes down to is a situational examination. When the finished first draft is sitting on your desk, and you're wielding the Mighty Red Pen like a surgeon's scalpel, what do you do?
You do what sounds right. And if 'Rut' is right, use it. If it's not, then don't.
But for God's sake, don't sit there too long, or you'll lose your nerve...

I appreciate the number crunching but 1% of the worlds children dead over a 7 day period is catastrophic to me and I'm sticking with that number.

I was unclear as usual when I muddying about the PoV issues. I was toying with doing the prologue in first person from the antagonists pov, but the 3rd person version which dealt with the antag doesn't seem to work so I scrapped the 1st person POV.

Survivor was spot on with why I used "rut" and I've opted out since the entire scene is going bye bye.

As to power escalation, I have 24 years of experience keeping power hungry gamers at bay, those same skills are very good at handling a reasonable progression of conflict in a fiction piece, where I have complete control, as opposed to an RPG piece where I am having to react to the players varied attempts to increase there influence or power :-)

I generally give advantage to the antagonist, I find it more interesting to read for and root for the underdog. Though I do find it occasionally refreshing when the protag has the advantage and the antag is attempting to circumvent it.

Thanks again, I will be back with a different intro, or the first 13 lines of chapter one. I may still use a version of the prologue later in the piece.

You also need to consider that a hundred million people die any given year, many of them children. A spike of 17 million dying in one week would be noticed, but only because of the connection with a specific event. Consider the tsunami disaster, probably about 550,000 people died that day, but we only cared about the ones killed in the one event.

Also, it is unrealistic to give someone an equal chance of dying or getting superpowers. Scale your superpowers a bit, and figure out a reasonable cost. For one kid to get 10 times as strong, 10 other kids had to die. For that same kid to become bulletproof, another 50 kids (or one for each bullet he shrugs off, whichever you like). To get doubled senses, just a single kid for each enhanced sense.

What I had in mind was a breakdown like this.

day 1 - Onset of the introduction of the mutating agent in the United States southeast, probably Atlanta. There is no immediate casualty rate.

Day -2 The virus spreads.

Day 3 - the virus "activates" first cases begin to show up in children under the age of 13 (only affects prepubescent and unborn children). This is a secondary and unforeseen side effect of the agent and is not immediately correlated until much later. Approximately 30-35% of children become symptomatic, with something similar to a severe flu.

day 4 - children all over the US are beginning to show symptoms.

Day 5 - children begin showing infection overseas and of the child population in the US the first children start to die, not all show symptoms.

Day 6 - 1%+ maybe a hair, of children under the age of 13 in the US are dead. Over the next 9 months miscarriages jump by almost 10%.

Day 7 - You start seeing a similar pattern in other parts of the world.

Day 8 - At this point 1%+ a bit of children under the age of 13 are dead.

Even at the point in which the story is set, noone is sure exactly what happened or how the virus became so evenly distributed so quickly. Though lack of adequate health care probably caused higher losses in other parts of the world, though these deaths were attributed to opportunistic diseases that attacked the childs weakened immune system, in the US it seemed that if a child was slated to die, no amount of medical attention could forestall it.

What happened? The (fictional and wholely improbable virus) was very hearty and mutated dramatically once it was released. It failed to perform as it was supposed to and instead of just killing indiscrimately it "awoke" latent genes in some children (I know this is weak, I am working on something more scientifically solid).

I said moderately bulletproof :-)

The reason for enhanced strength is increased muscle density not mass, there is also a downside to the moderately bulletproof skin, his sense of touch is almost non existent, which is why the character is exploring other areas of pleasure, like near fatal drug use. Bullets do hurt him, though with his diminished sense of touch the pain is very manageable. Also high calibre rounds would probably penetrate his skin.

I do have some loose biological\physiological explanations for what happens when he's shot etc.